The invention relates to a railway track comprising a ballast bed, sleepers disposed on the ballast bed and rails mounted on the sleepers. The invention further relates to a sleeper for such a railway track as well as a gap cover for covering the gap between such sleepers.
Sleeper according to the state of the art, may be manufactured of wood. Concrete or steel, concrete sleepers of the German type B70 are at present most frequently installed, the axial spacing of the sleepers being 60 cm with a maximum sleeper width of 30 cm.
This track system, conceived to be durable, is exposed to all sorts of weather conditions and requires constant maintenance. The very high maintenance costs include lifting, tamping and realigning the track in the event of positional shifts, cleaning the track in the event of severe soiling and eradication of plant growth in the ballast bed.